


Home Front

by Riona



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Inspired by Vargas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24233596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Living with Scriabin isn't easy. Living without him would be worse.(Inspired by the ficVargasbyZarla.)
Relationships: Edgar/Scriabin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	Home Front

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Vargas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/49492) by [Zarla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla). 



> This is set after chapter 29 of Zarla's wonderful [_Vargas_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/49492/chapters/65055).

Edgar goes into a store on his way home from work, one he’s never visited before. He’s not really sure what he’s doing there until he finds himself standing in front of the wig section, and suddenly he knows.

This is stupid.

He picks out a long, dark wig. A little too straight, but—

He tries it on. Checks the mirror to see if he can see Scriabin there, the one he remembers. Quick glances, like he can keep himself from noticing what he’s doing if he doesn’t look too long.

It’s not Scriabin. The stance is wrong, the expression. The glasses.

He takes off his glasses. When his reflection’s blurred, he can almost believe it.

He buys the wig and takes it with him. It’s a gift. It’s not for himself. He thinks about buying some yarn as well and tying a loop in it, but it seems presumptuous somehow.

He spends the whole drive home rehearsing it in his head, how he’s going to offer it to Scriabin. _Hey, I saw this in a window and—_

_It’s not perfect, but I thought, you know, until your hair grows back—_

In the end, he says nothing. Just leaves it on the pillow of Scriabin’s makeshift bed.

Scriabin doesn’t say anything about it. But the next morning, Edgar finds it rammed into the kitchen trashcan, taking up all the space at the top, as visible as possible.

He guesses that’s that.

-

It’s not really a surprise that Scriabin isn’t the easiest of people to live with. He’s much more needy and childish than the actual child in their apartment.

Edgar still isn’t used to being able to think things like that without retribution.

But he’s here. And living with Scriabin is difficult, but living without him would be unendurable.

He needs to try very hard to bear that in mind right now.

“I was stopped in the street today,” Edgar says, evenly, hanging up his coat. “A young lady. She called me Scriabin and was _extremely_ interested to know why I hadn’t called her.”

“Tell her I was probably you the next day,” Scriabin calls from where he’s lying on the couch. “I think that’s a reasonable excuse. Which one was she?”

That is not a question Edgar likes at all. “How many were there?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“It’s my body; how is it not my business?”

Scriabin rolls off the couch and gets to his feet, in a move that’s probably intended to be smooth and graceful but falls just short. In a dream, he’d have carried it off perfectly. “It was my body as well. Is it my fault that I wasn’t the only occupant?”

His hair’s growing back, but it’s still far too short. Too close to Edgar’s. It’s hard to look at it. Edgar wishes he’d taken the wig.

Edgar sighs. “You know, sometimes I think you genuinely don’t feel you ever did anything wrong.”

Scriabin splutters. “ _I_ don’t – oh, and of course you’re St Edgar, patron of the lonely and inert—”

“I didn’t say anything about myself,” Edgar says. “We were talking about you.”

“ _Everything I did_ was to help you!”

“You disguised yourself as Nny to kiss me.” He manages to hold it out of his thoughts most of the time, but somehow it becomes hard to keep his voice steady when the memory comes back to him.

Scriabin’s eyebrows shoot up over his glasses. “That’s a _very_ misleading way of phrasing it.”

“How would you put it?”

“I didn’t _disguise myself_ as Nny,” Scriabin snaps. “You knew exactly who I was. And I wasn’t doing it to – I was just helping you stop lying to yourself!”

“And that was the only possible method?” Edgar asks. “You _chose_ to kiss me because you knew it would upset me. You weren’t trying to help me. You were trying to mess with my head; that’s all there was to it.”

Scriabin stares at him for a moment, breathing hard.

“Believe what you want,” he says at last. “That’s what you always do, isn’t it?”

-

Officially, Scriabin’s still lodging on the floor by the couch, although he does at least now have an actual air bed rather than sleeping on cushions. Unofficially, Edgar will often go to sleep as his bed’s sole occupant and wake to find Scriabin next to him, snoring softly. It’s a bit like having a very large cat.

He’s considered getting a bolt for his door, but he doesn’t really have the heart.

When he’s drifting off and the bed dips beside him, he assumes it’s the usual: Scriabin looking for a more comfortable place to sleep. Edgar shuffles over a little to give him room, not opening his eyes.

There’s a pause. Shifting, warmth. Someone—

Someone pressing a kiss to the back of his neck, and suddenly Edgar is _very_ awake.

“Scriabin?” he asks, after a moment. His throat feels dry.

“Look at me,” Scriabin whispers.

What...

What’s... happening, here? What does he do?

No Scriabin in his head to ask for advice.

Edgar rolls onto his back. Scriabin’s sitting beside him, his expression unclear in the blurred darkness. If he focuses, Edgar can make out the shape of his coat.

He’s wearing a trenchcoat to bed?

“ _All there was to it_ ,” Scriabin says, quietly. “You don’t – you never open your eyes, you can’t just say—”

Silence.

Scriabin braces his arm on Edgar’s far side and leans down.

It’s really just a touch at first, just the pressure of Scriabin’s lips against his, and then Scriabin’s other hand is in Edgar’s hair and his fingers are tightening and their mouths—

Edgar scrabbles at Scriabin’s front, pushes him away, breathing so fast he nearly chokes on it. Scriabin makes a quiet noise he can’t interpret, surprise or pain.

“We’re brothers,” Edgar whispers, his heart hammering in his throat. “That’s our cover story.”

“Our _cover story?_ ” Scriabin echoes. “You’re going to have to tell me if you mean yes or no, Edgar, because I don’t think you could have made that sound any gayer.”

He has to keep his mind clear, he has – he has to reason, he— “If anyone found out—”

“You’re worried about what the neighbours will think?” Scriabin asks, mocking. “Don’t you find it interesting that that’s the first place you go for an argument? Nothing about whether you want this. If you’re not tempted, why not say so?”

If he says no, will Scriabin listen? Scriabin’s never been trustworthy; how deep does that run? Where are the lines drawn?

He remembers being trapped in a blank space, Scriabin taking Nny’s form. Are they still the people they were back then?

“Don’t,” Edgar says, very quietly, to test it.

It doesn’t seem like he should... need an _excuse_ to say no. Scriabin’s right: if he doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want it. That should be a reason in itself.

But he has an excuse, so he’ll take it.

Scriabin stares at him for a moment. Edgar tries to brace himself. He doesn’t know for what, exactly.

“Like I wanted you, anyway,” Scriabin says at last, getting to his feet. “You thought I was serious?”

He storms out of the room in a sweep of his coat. Edgar curls up on his side and tries to sleep.

-

He can’t find Scriabin the next morning.

He’s missing something. He just needs to go through the apartment again.

Nothing. Scriabin isn’t here.

“Um, I think I heard someone shut the front door really hard last night,” Todd says, nervously, when Edgar asks.

It’s not the first time Scriabin’s gone out without saying anything. It only happens when he’s really furious. Usually, if he wants to go out and do something, he’ll pester Edgar into coming with him. He used to say he wished he could be free of Edgar, but he doesn’t seem any better at coping apart than Edgar is.

The first time Scriabin disappeared, Edgar panicked and cancelled all his cards. If Scriabin didn’t have any money, he wouldn’t be able to get too far. Scriabin had called him up and sworn extensively down the phone at him, and Edgar hadn’t been able to find the voice to say anything. Listening to Scriabin on the phone, being able to hear him but not see him: it had almost felt like before, like he could reach out and touch the time they were one person.

Edgar tries to stay calm. It’s not the first time.

-

Morning blurs into afternoon, evening, night, and there’s no sign of Scriabin. The silence inside Edgar’s head is echoing worse than ever. He’s starting to think with dread about trying to get to sleep, not knowing where Scriabin is, not knowing if he’s alive or dead.

A key turning in the apartment’s front door, and his heart jumps. He’s off the couch and on his feet before the door’s opened.

Scriabin pauses when he sees him, still holding the door, like he’s thinking about turning around and walking straight back out. Edgar takes a few steps backward, away from the entrance, in the hope the apartment will somehow seem more inviting if he’s further away.

It seems to work, thankfully. Scriabin comes in, lets the door fall shut behind him.

“Where were you?” Edgar asks.

“Fucking your mom,” Scriabin says, without hesitation.

There’s a moment where they’re just looking at each other.

“I wish you’d told me you were planning to be out for that long,” Edgar says.

Scriabin folds his arms. “I wasn’t _planning_ to be out at all. I had entirely different _plans_.”

Is this...

Is this about Edgar _rejecting_ him? The possibility had crossed Edgar’s mind, but...

He’d chosen to assume there was something else at play, he supposes. Scriabin approaching him like that, that had to be a joke, or just a way to screw with Edgar’s head. If turning Scriabin down upset him this badly, that implies things that Edgar isn’t really comfortable contemplating.

He can’t apologise for it, in any case. He doesn’t owe...

Well, he may technically owe Scriabin some things, if he created him. But he doesn’t owe him anything like that.

Edgar swallows. “Well, when your plans changed, the courteous thing to do would have been to let me know how long you were going to be out.”

Scriabin makes a low, angry noise in his throat. “You want to chain me up in this shitty apartment if you can’t keep me trapped in your head?”

“I’m not saying you can’t go out; I’m just asking you not to disappear. I was worried about you.”

“You don’t care,” Scriabin says. “You don’t give a shit about me.”

“Why would I pretend it bothered me when it didn’t?” Edgar asks. “I don’t enjoy arguments so much that I’d create one out of nothing.”

_I’m not like you_ comes to mind. He probably shouldn’t say it.

It’s a luxury he’s still unused to, being able to keep thoughts from Scriabin.

Scriabin stalks into Edgar’s bedroom, slams the door. Edgar’s been finding himself shut out of his own bedroom more than he feels he strictly should.

Being able to get away is a luxury for Scriabin as well, Edgar guesses.

Still, at least he’s back in the apartment. Maybe not home, exactly, but somewhere close to it.

-

Saturday, a week later, two packages arrive. Both addressed to ‘Scriabin’, no last name. Edgar’s curious, but Scriabin grabs them and takes them into Edgar’s bedroom rather than opening them in front of him.

Scriabin’s in there a while, and Edgar’s heating up water for lunch by the time the door creaks open again. Edgar glances up and quickly turns off the stove; he doesn’t want to forget about it.

Strange that his first response, when he’s hit in the throat by emotion, is so practical.

At first glance, it was like being back in their shared dreams, it was like really _seeing_ Scriabin again. The differences are starting to stand out now, as he keeps looking, but it still makes such an impact.

Scriabin’s wearing a wig. Not the one Edgar bought him; it’s different, it looks higher-quality. Probably a lot more expensive. Undoubtedly bought with Edgar’s money.

It’s hard for Edgar to care about that right now. The hair brings them closer, somehow. It feels right.

There’s a loop of red yarn tied at the side. It’s a strangely intense relief to see it.

Scriabin is looking at him as if daring him to make a comment.

“Pesto pasta okay for lunch?” Edgar asks.

“You mean one of the two things you ever cook?” Scriabin asks. “I suppose I’d starve if I said no.”

“There’s nothing to prevent _you_ from cooking.”

“Fuck you.”

Edgar turns back to the stove. He’s smiling.


End file.
